AuthorTopic: Keep your laptop and Vista both. (Read 17056 times)

My primary objective is to use only reflected light, so looking into a bright white screen would be just as undesirable as direct lighting (if not worse). I know what youre saying, that's about what I do: I tilt the screen forward so it illuminates the keyboard.

Speaking of desktops and notebooks, this article says that soon in the US more notebooks will be sold than desktops. And that this has already happened in Japan ( for years ) and Western Europe ( last year ). It is estimated that by 2010 the notebook will overtake the desktop in sales worldwide.

You can have my desktop when you pry it from my cold, dead ... oh, never mind.

I expect that laptops will become easier to use and repair as they become more prevalent. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where I can't get the parts to build my own machine anymore. That would be a sad day for me.

Tom

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"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds, April 1991

I just hope it doesn't get to the point where I can't get the parts to build my own machine anymore. That would be a sad day for me.

That will happen, unfortunatelly.

I don't think so, there will always be people who want a modular computer, so you can upgrade something whenever you want. Newer computers will be so complex not one manufacturer can develop all the parts needed and assemble them into some ugly non-modular design. Also, it's much easier for manufacturers to build computers from off the shelf parts than it is to build your own hardware. You can't just decide to build your own videocards as a computer manufacturer, unless you're one of the really big ones. It would still not be economical, as they don't have the knowhow that intel, ATI and Nvidia do.

hmm, may be if the manufacturers make some kind of fusion in order to build a monopoly... I guess we will need to find parts on the garbage. Is hard to predict. When several companies are joined in a side, in order to build a more powerful an with a better integrated solution; in the meanwhile others are geting modular and being splited, in order to be more efficient. It's some kind of circle, I guess. PS: That was interesting reading, kocil, thanks. I dont agree with author though.

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"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise. --Jumalauta!!

Just because laptop sales are increasing and passing desktop sales does not mean desktop computers are on the way out. It will take many years before we have an idea of where things are heading in real life. In the mean time, desktops are more powerful than laptops at the same price point, desktops can be repaired much more easily, builds, repairs, and upgrades can be done by non-technical people, repairs on a desktop cost much less, and using a real keyboard and looking at a real monitor bigger than any laptop screen are still important factors in the laptop vs. desktop decision.

It's not either/or. A serious computer user will probably want both. As prices keep falling, you don't have to be wealthy to have both.

Smartphones will replace laptops to some extent. It's much easier to carry a small smartphone than even the lightest notebook computer. Even my aging PDA can do some of the things I'd use a computer for, and it has no phone and no wireless in it. It can do Office-compatible word processing and spreadsheets, and if I actually had to do these things on the road I'd get a keyboard for it. I don't need to do those things, so the PDA's "soft keyboard" and Graffiti writing are sufficient for my needs. If my PDA did wireless I could do my e-mail and Web browsing at any hot spot. Listen to music, look at photos, check my calendar, keep my address book--I can do all of these on a small device.

I have no idea what the next ten years will bring. I hope I'm still around to see it!--GrannyGeek

I agree about desktops have long life, and laptops are good machines if you need/want a computer with you all the time. But I think we can doubt about the tomh38 concerning. Hardware manufacturers monopolizing computer parts is not an impossible future. Improbable, but not impossible, the users, the laws, needs to to work to avoid that chance in the future.

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"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise. --Jumalauta!!

Good points, everyone. My gut tells me that in the near future (5-10 years) desktop hardware will be available more on the net and less in brick-and-mortar shops, since Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's, etc. are struggling. I already buy most of my hardware online, and only buy something at CompUSA if I need it immediately. I agree with GrannyGeek and The Headacher that for the foreseeable future there will be a demand for modular design and that with laptops and desktops it's not an either/or scenario. Automobiles have been coming off the assembly line for 100 years now, but there are still a few people who build/rebuild cars. Also, servers need to be customized for the needs of business (often - I've put together a few myself), and most machines that can work as a server can work as a workstation. My current main machine lives in a mini-server case, which I bought along with the best power supply and cooling system I could find so that I could stuff all the hardware I want to in there and not worry about space or airflow. As long as the ATX form factor remains standard for PCs, I should be able to use this case indefinitely. When I bought it all the off-the-shelf desktops were beige, but my case was black. Now everything is black, grey, and silver. Anyway, if manufacturers stop making PC hardware available to individuals, I'm going to buy up as many PCs as I can find and build a Beowulf cluster in my basement and connect a thin client to it upstairs. That should keep me current for a few years. After that, computers will be the size of tic-tacs and the interface will be through the brainstem. Once that happens, I'll buy a shotgun and go live in a cabin in the woods. I'll be seeing all of you in some virtuality where you can look like whatever you want. I'll be the incredibly handsome guy with a perfectly sculpted body, every superpower of every superhero, and a ginormous ****. I suspect I'll be one of millions like that.

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"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds, April 1991

I once needed a USB cable ( male-to-male, i think ) and went to CompUSA to get it. The cheapest one was 26 dollars ( ! ). I went online and found it for 3. The internet is a god-send for cheap-skates poor people like me.

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“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.” -- Bill Moyers